The Ottawa trio’s entrancing music, a mix of contemporary electronica and powwow traditions, has always had an undercurrent of activism. The three members of the Tribe, including DJ NDN, DJ Shub and Bear Witness, are aboriginals, and while they do want to entertain you - hell, they want you to get up and dance - they also want to bridge a yawning gap between Canada’s aboriginal and non-aboriginal populations.

By making music that’s wholly unlike any that most people have heard before, A Tribe Called Red wants to kick-start a conversation about “First Nation issues in a settler world.”

Nation II Nation is like a diplomatic statement, if diplomatic statements could be infectiously, deliriously invigorating.